How Blue Origin Plans To Land New Glenn’s Booster On A Moving Ship
Ambitious ideas are necessary in order to innovate and make positive changes in practically anything. This especially is the case with the space industry as we watch many different companies and agencies work on new projects that feature unique designs, manufacturing processes, goals, and more. Blue Origin is among this large list with plans to land New Glenn’s booster on a moving ship.
By now many of us have watched SpaceX land countless Falcon 9 first stages on drone ships out at sea. This impressive feat has allowed the company to cost-efficiently and efficiently continue to launch. For a while now Blue Origin has been working on New Glenn, a next-generation launch vehicle meant to change how we access space.
One of the rocket’s ambitious goals is to reuse the booster up to 25 times by landing it on a ship after returning to the surface of Earth. However, as you can imagine, this is much easier said than done. In reality, the process of landing a rocket booster on land much less a ship is an immensely difficult task. Here I will go more in-depth into the goal of this process and how exactly Blue Origin plans to do it.
Landing At Sea
Reusability in rockets is no doubt the future of accessing space. As time has gone on we have watched more and more companies make the shift towards either partial or full reusability. Blue Origin is no exception with the work towards landing New Glenn’s booster up to 25 times on a ship. Specifically, the flight profile consists of New Glenn lifting off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral. Following stage separation, the first stage flies back to Earth and lands nearly 1,000 km downrange on a moving ship, allowing the booster to land in heavy sea-states.
We can first look at the design of the rocket and how that plays into its future attempts of landing the first stage. Towards the top of the booster, you will see fins. More accurately, the forward module of the booster features four actuated aerodynamic control fins for attitude control during descent. In addition, large aerodynamic strakes on the aft end of the tanks are intended to give the returning first stage enhanced cross-range during descent and reentry. All of which is necessary if the booster plans to land nearly 1000 kilometers downrange. Next are the BE-4 engines meant to slow down the booster significantly and safely land it. When designing this engine, Blue Origin considered its future uses and the need for an engine capable of launching plenty of times with limited work after a mission. The company chose LNG as a propellant because it is highly efficient, low cost, and widely available. Unlike kerosene, LNG can be used to self-pressurize its tank. Known as autogenous repressurization, this eliminates the need for costly and complex systems that draw on Earth’s scarce helium reserves. LNG also possesses clean combustion characteristics even at low throttle, simplifying engine reuse compared to kerosene fuels. BE-4 was designed from the beginning to be a medium-performing version of a high-performance architecture. This design choice was made to lower development risk while attempting to meet performance, schedule, and reusability requirements.
The next important factor of Blue Origin’s plan includes the ship itself. Originally a cargo ship with the name LPV, has since been worked on to try and accommodate future rocket landings. Blue Origin purchased the ship in 2018 and eventually renamed it, Jacklyn. The ship features stabilization technology designed to increase the likelihood of successful rocket recovery in rough seas, as well as help to carry out launches on schedule. All this being said, not long ago news came out that Blue Origin was possibly reconsidering its options and thinking of other ways to safely and cost effectively land New Glenn’s booster.
A more detailed look at the flight profile can also help give an idea of exactly what Blue Origin plans for the future. Most missions to Low Earth orbit, geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), and elsewhere follow similar mission profiles. In the final seconds before liftoff, the seven BE-4 engines on the first stage ignite in advance of an automated final go/no-go determination. The engines throttle up to partial thrust, at which point built-in-test diagnostic software analyzes the performance and health of each engine. Upon verification of nominal conditions, the flight computer issues a final “commit to launch” command, which permits full engine throttle. The transporter erector tips back out of the flight cone, hold down mechanisms release, and New Glenn lifts from the launch pad, detaching all launch vehicle umbilicals. For a nominal 250 km perigee altitude GTO mission, the first stage booster initiates an engine shutdown sequence at a mission elapsed time (MET) of 199 seconds. The command induces the BE-4 main engine cut-off (MECO), and thrust tails off until second stage separation occurs at MET 202 seconds. The first stage then reorients for atmospheric reentry, landing, and recovery. In the past we have watched Blue Origin land New Shepard’s booster plenty of times. This being said, there is a very significant difference between the size, distance traveled, and landing location, just to name a few. All of which Blue Origin will need to consider and perfect in order for future New Glenn booster landing attempts to be successful. In addition, as the company continues to work towards its first orbital test flight of the launch vehicle, they will need to figure out exactly how to safely return the booster.
New Glenn Reusability
Now that we know more about New Glenn’s plan and the process of landing a booster, we can take a look at Blue Origin’s plans for the future and why reusability is so important to them. The company points out that its mission is to develop reliable low-cost launch vehicles and customer-focused services that will enable a thriving commercial orbital ecosystem. The goal is to foster new industries that can access the limitless resources of space and improve life here on Earth. They envision a future where millions of people will be living and working in space. For quite a while, Blue Origin has been working on reusable propulsion technologies and space transportation systems necessary to make commercial spaceflight safe, affordable, and routine. They believe low-cost space access will dramatically reduce barriers to entry for new commercial and governmental activities in space. Focusing back on New Glenn, the goal is for the first stage booster to minimize expenses and time required for refurbishment between flights. Because no disassembly or subsystem replacements are necessary, the cycle time of New Glenn between flights is measured in days and hours, rather than months. As partially mentioned prior, the booster engines use clean and economical liquefied natural gas. Blue Origin is trying to integrate its rocket horizontally and then roll out to the pad and launch within hours. This commercial approach results in a higher mission frequency and lower operational cost.
Blue Origin points out that continuous improvements in design, testing, and manufacturing capabilities, as well as a rigorous systems engineering process, are at the core of its philosophy. This incremental approach embodied in their motto, Gradatim Ferociter (Latin for “step by step, ferociously”), led to the historic flight and successful reuse of our New Shepard suborbital vehicle program in 2015. They mention that New Shepard demonstrated key enabling capabilities, such as vertical takeoff and landing, deeply throttleable cryogenic engines, rapid inspection, and operational reuse. These fundamental technology building blocks lead directly to their next step, the New Glenn orbital launch system. The New Glenn launch system is designed to launch spacecraft into low Earth orbit (LEO), geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), and beyond. New Glenn is designed from the ground up to deliver reliable and affordable services. Overall, Blue Origin has quite the task ahead of them. At nearly 190 feet tall, the booster alone will create an impressive challenge the company needs to solve in hopes of reusability. After the second stage separation, the plan consists of the first stage booster reorienting itself to reenter the atmosphere aft end first. Through a combination of aerodynamics and propulsive maneuvers, the stage performs a precision landing on the ocean-going platform in the Atlantic Ocean. After recovery at sea, the booster returns to the launch site via Port Canaveral for inspection and reuse. Very ambitious, but important for the future of accessing space in a more efficient and cost-friendly manner.
Conclusion
Not very long ago, practically the only piece of a rocket that was reused was the crew capsule. Today we are watching rocket boosters land on drone ships, small-lift launch vehicle boosters caught out of mid air, and even more ambitious ideas for reusability. Blue Origin has some experience with this process on New Shepard, however, there is a big difference between this rocket and future launch vehicles such as New Glenn. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.